Journey Into Wholeness: Prayer for Inner Healing an Essential Ministry of the Church / Alan Guile

Drawing on forty years' experience in this ministry, the author shows how prayer helps people to emerge from their past hurts and limitations, and gradually reclaim their real selves under the awesome power of God's love. Powerful testimonies underline his call for the Church to empower clergy and laity to meet the needs of people suffering in a wide range of stressful life situations. The stories of some of the hundreds who have come to his home seeking help indicate how effectively people's needs can be met through ordinary people in parishes, and offer a model for development. People are seeking prayer for inner healing, some travelling long distances. More will come forward as The New Evangelisation gathers pace, especially those who have moved away from the Church, and those practising their faith but who are not sufficiently evangelised.

This book shows from Church documents that prayer for inner healing which leads towards greater holiness is an essential part of evangelisation, yet this ministry is only rarely available and receives scant, if any, attention in seminaries. Some readers will wish to consider their own lives in the light of the insights and testimonies shared, and seek healing for themselves. Others will realise that they themselves have the capacity and calling to become involved in the ministry of healing. Those in a position to institute change at a higher level within the Church will find suggestions as to how the structures of the Church can respond to the needs of all its people. Priests and religious need prayer for inner healing as well as lay people. Part healing handbook, part honest autobiography, part powerful witness and teaching, this book is wholly focused on spirituality, the chances we have to gain freedom through Christ, and on how the Church can and should help.